For its very first product, 2Mar Robotics, a Melbourne, Australia-based company founded in 2013,
set out to create a robotic arm marketed to an
emerging robotics customer base: consumers.

Robots used in the home are expected to be the
fastest-growing segment within the global robotics market, growing from US$1 billion in spending
in 2010 to US$9 billion in 2025, according to the
Boston Consulting Group. 2Mar’s robot, called
Jeva, would serve as a household helper for people
with disabilities.

Marita Cheng, the company’s founder and the
project lead, began the development process with
a learning tour. She interviewed people living with
disabilities as well as organizations devoted to their
welfare, asking for feedback to inform a prototype.
2Mar’s nine-engineer project team quickly assembled
a prototype—a voice-operated, wheelchair-mounted
bionic arm—and completed it in mid-2013.

The 2Mar team then tested the prototype in
the homes of 15 people with upper-limb mobility
issues. This first Jeva could lift only about 300 grams
(0.7 pound). After seeing how the robot struggled to
lift many of the users’ items, the 2Mar team decided
to make the next iteration more powerful. Each
machine costs more as a result, but its performance
improved dramatically. The latest version of the
Jeva robot can lift over 2 kilograms (more than 4
pounds). It will cost about AU$40,000, a mid-range
price for robotic arms.

Ms. Cheng says her team’s process has changed
and matured as Jeva’s development has advanced.
Rather than moving as quickly as possible to completion and testing, her team now uses its insights from

For Mr. Nel and Mr. Mascorro, the prototype presented
an opportunity to learn from
its interactions with real customers and to learn about the
constraints presented by real
stores. For example, one of the
surprising hurdles of the testing phase proved to be Internet
access: The average Lowe’s store
did not have a strong-enough
network to accommodate the
robot. Now the team knows the
required network strength and
has made changes so that a stronger wireless network is the only
adjustment that stores will have
to make to accommodate the
robot. In addition, the initial prototype involved placing sensors
throughout the store. Now all the
required sensors reside within
the robot itself.

The decision to introduce a
robot to the public after less
than a year of development, but
in only one store, reflects the
team’s agile approach: Iterate,
test, refine and iterate again—as
quickly as possible.

“We’re not approaching this
project as having discrete parts,
Now, Mr. Nel says, Lowe’s is considering a roll-out plan for other stores.

“We’re talking aboutspeech recognition,autonomous navigationand a database. We’retalking about puttingall those thingstogether in a way thathas never been donebefore, and that’s beenthe hardest part.”